Ethyl methanesulfonate rendered a high percentage of Rhodospirillum rubrum cells plasmidless and photosynthetically incompetent (Kuhl et al., J. Bacteriol. 156:737-742, 1983). By probing restriction endonuclease-digested chromosomal DNA from these plasmidless strains with 32P-labeled R. rubrum plasmid DNA, we showed that no homology exists between the plasmid and the chromosomal DNA of the muta...

The fine structure of Rhodospirillum rubrum grown under a series of defined conditions has been examined in thin sections prepared by the methods of Ryter and Kellenberger. In cells grown anaerobically at different light intensities, the abundance of 500 A membrane-bounded vesicles in the cytoplasm is inversely related to light intensity, and directly related to cellular chlorophyll content. Wh...

The photosynthetic non-sulphur bacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum contains a cluster of five genes encoding the subunits of F1-ATPase [Falk, Hampe & Walker (1985) Biochem. J. 228, 391-407]. Transcription of these genes has been studied by two methods, transcriptional mapping with S1 nuclease and primer extension analysis. Thereby a 5'-end in RNA derived from this region has been demonstrated at a ...

Purple nonsulfur bacteria grow photoheterotrophically by using light for energy and organic compounds for carbon and electrons. Disrupting the activity of the CO2-fixing Calvin cycle enzyme, ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RubisCO), prevents photoheterotrophic growth unless an electron acceptor is provided or if cells can dispose of electrons as H2. Such observations led to the long-stan...

CooA, the CO-sensing heme protein from Rhodospirillum rubrum, regulates the expression of genes that encode a CO-oxidation system, allowing R. rubrum to use CO as a sole energy source. To better understand the gas-sensing regulation mechanism used by R. rubrum CooA and its homologs in other organisms, we characterized spectroscopically and functionally the Fe(II), Fe(II)-NO, and Fe(II)-CO forms...

The light-harvesting complex I (LH-I) of Rhodobacter sphaeroides has been modeled computationally as a hexadecamer of alphabeta-heterodimers, based on a close homology of the heterodimer to that of light-harvesting complex II (LH-II) of Rhodospirillum molischianum. The resulting LH-I structure yields an electron density projection map that is in agreement with an 8.5-A resolution electron micro...

Type strains of the purple nonsulfur species Rhodospirillum rubrum, Rhodospirillum photometricum, and Rhodopseudomonas palustris grew phototrophically on a number of two- and three-carbon halocarboxylic acids in the presence of CO2, by reductive dehalogenation and assimilation of the resulting acid. Strains of each of these species were able to grow on chloroacetic, 2-bromopropionic, 2-chloropr...